Microsoft has unveiled Scout, an experimental always-on AI "autopilot" agent for Microsoft 365 that can operate across Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint, calendars, contacts, browsers, and external apps via MCP. "Autopilots stay active in the background, understand how work gets done across your apps and systems, and take action without needing to be prompted each time," said Omar Shahine, a Microsoft veteran who recently announced he is leading a new team to bring OpenClaw-based personal assistants to Microsoft 365 apps. Computerworld reports: Shahine said Scout can reduce mundane tasks that office workers face, such as coordinating and scheduling meeting times with colleagues, or blocking times in a user's calendar based on upcoming work commitments. "It can also spot risks, like stalled decisions, so you can address them before they become blockers," he said. It's available as an "experimental release" to customers of the company's Frontier program, Microsoft said, and will require Intune policy configuration and "opt-in attestation." [...] It's not clear whether Scout will be included in Microsoft 365 Copilot subscriptions or charged separately. Microsoft did not immediately provide additional details about pricing.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order asking artificial intelligence companies to provide models to the federal government to assess their capabilities ahead of a full release. The order asks companies, on a voluntary basis, to participate in a benchmarking process to assess a model's "advanced cyber capabilities" and determine whether it should be considered a "covered frontier model." It then asks for access to those models up to 30 days before the companies plan to release them more broadly, and enables the government to help select the "trusted partners" that will receive early access.
"Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models," the order said. Trump signed the order in private, just weeks after he postponed a signing ceremony with prominent tech CEOs because he "didn't like certain aspects of it," he told reporters at the time. [...] Trump's AI order outlines several timeframes to develop directives and other guidance, specifically calling on the Department of Defense to prioritize the cyber defense of its information systems.
Longtime Slashdot reader Matt_Bennett shares a blog post from Adafruit: Adafruit received at 10:38 p.m. ET on May 22, 2026 a letter from former FBI chief of staff, Jonathan F. Lenzner, and partner at Fenwick & West LLP, counsel for Flux, demanding, among other things, that Adafruit refrain from publishing an article addressing what the letter characterizes as false and potentially defamatory claims about Flux, including statements about Flux's intellectual property, commercial traction and user base.
The letter further asserts claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Adafruit accessed only information that Flux's own systems made publicly available through a server misconfiguration. Adafruit's reporting concerns a matter of public security interest and was conducted in the ordinary course of responsible disclosure.
Although Adafruit vigorously rejects the assertions made in Flux's May 22, 2026 demand letter, we have temporarily stopped publishing on the Adafruit blog while we consider our response and next steps. We will update the community as appropriate. For context, Adafruit is a major open-source hardware company and electronics retailer known for its maker-focused boards, components, tutorials, and community publishing. Flux.ai is relevant because it is building an AI-assisted circuit-board design platform aimed at changing how engineers create and collaborate on PCB designs.
"Adafruit probably did a review of AI PCB tools," writes HN user karmicthreat. "I've used Flux.ai before; it was a pretty bad experience. After about 50-100$ in tokens a couple of times, I couldn't get more than a couple of simple components on the schematic. And not in sensible positions..."
Redditor AlexTaradox adds: "Nothing was published as far as I know. I assume they did review of AI tools and likely contacted flux with some preliminary results, but flux saw where it is going and decided to block them from publishing any results. Flux is garbage and they obviously know it, but they need to hold for some time until some other scam acquires them. Doing anything with them is just asking to be screwed..."
Further discussions are taking place on Reddit and Hacker News.
New EU battery rules taking effect early next year are pushing tech makers toward user-replaceable batteries in products like headphones, e-readers, handheld consoles, laptops, and possibly earbuds. But carve-outs for smartphones and tablets may mean replaceable batteries won't necessarily return to phones in the way many users remember. The Verge's Dominic Preston reports: Since the upcoming law doesn't actually come into force until February 18th, 2027, companies still have plenty of time to get their ducks in a row. Still, it's likely that before then we'll see more and more manufacturers launch products with user-replaceable batteries, across audio, e-readers, gaming handhelds, and more. Only time will tell whether most of those products are EU only, or whether the new European laws shape the nature of tech worldwide.
It's likely that some product categories will move slower than others. Tech companies will have breathed a sigh of relief that wearables look likely to be exempt, but if wireless earbuds aren't carved out as well then there may be a scramble to adapt the miniature designs for easy replaceability. "The in-ear form factor demands extreme miniaturization, to fit the driver, antenna, processor, microphones and battery," notes a recent report from consultants Futuresource, going on to suggest that meeting the requirements will make earbuds both bigger and more expensive to manufacture.
There also remains uncertainty about how some elements of the law will be interpreted. The law requires that user repairs be possible using "commercially available tools," which are "tools available on the market to all end-users." Right to Repair Europe's Alberico points out that this is a broad definition, likely to include a lot of tools not found in most houses, so there will likely be nothing to stop manufacturers requiring the sorts of less common screws that require dedicated electronics tool kits. There's also no strict definition of the "reasonable" price that manufacturers are required to set for spare parts. "That will likely take time -- and possibly litigation -- to clarify in practice," Alberico says. "But without fair access to affordable spare parts, repair will struggle to become the simplest and most attractive option for consumers."
The big disappointment is that the separate phone and tablet legislation means we won't see any real changes there, so long as manufacturers make their batteries and devices durable. "This creates a false tradeoff between durability and repairability," Alberico says. "Robust, waterproof devices should not have to come at the expense of user-replaceable batteries. While the ecodesign legislation requirements meant an improvement in battery durability and replaceability, at Right to Repair Europe we'll continue to advocate for all products to be designed with user-replaceable batteries." Whether the EU will listen remains to be seen. Otherwise, the main product people seem to want to replace the battery in may remain one of the only ones where they can't.
Salesforce’s planned acquisition of Contentful should give its Headless 360 product – which CEO Marc Benioff gushed about during earnings last week – a much-needed shot in the arm, an analyst told The Register. Headless 360 takes the Salesforce logic and data layers and presents them inside other applications the user might be operating, such as WhatsApp, Slack, ChatGPT, or Claude. During the call last week, Benioff said it had seen rapid adoption, including a fivefold increase in usage among customers at Anthropic. But it came with limitations. “It lacked the enterprise-grade content layer to drive the customer facing digital experiences,” Forrester principal analyst Chuck Gahun told The Register. “Enterprise customers that wanted to build a marketing website around product listing and detail pages (powered by Salesforce B2B and B2C commerce), ended up relying on different software vendors. Now, Agentforce agents can query customer data, assemble and deliver content driven digital experiences that are dynamic.” It is also another step to move users off of the Salesforce UI, while preserving its unique data and functions. Gahun said that the headless strategy transitions Salesforce's place in the enterprise from a keeper of CRM records and customer data into a system of action where APIs and MCP server calls are able to produce results for business users. “Contentful was one of the strongest headless CMS vendors, with an API-first founding architectural principle. All content management and delivery platform capabilities were accessible via high-fidelity APIs, including an app framework to build, package and distribute frontend and backend apps that are customizable,” Gahun told The Register. Salesforce has been on a buying spree with the purchases of Convergence AI, Bluebirds, Regrello, Informatica, Qualified, Cimulate, and Momentum, all announced or closed within the last year. President and chief operating and financial officer Robin Washington told analysts in September that Salesforce has no plans to slow down M&A. “If we see other things out there that make sense, we're going to buy them,” she said. Gahun has been covering Contentful as a content management system for nearly four years. He said with Salesforce adding Contentful as the digital experience layer on top and with Informatica's customer and enterprise data, it has the potential to unlock better digital and customer experiences for Salesforce. “As digital content begins driving context for agents and answer engines, Salesforce now has a unique seat at that business logic table: powered by context, content, and data - flowing through its next gen enterprise agentic SaaS platform,” he said. The acquisition of Contentful is expected to close later this year, subject to regulatory conditions. Salesforce has not publicly disclosed the purchase price of Contentful. A spokesperson told The Register that it had no comment beyond its statement when asked for more information about the deal. In its statement, Salesforce said Contentful is trusted by 4,800 customers worldwide and gives users a single content layer across email, mobile and web for any use case. “Together, Agentforce and Contentful will move enterprises from static, channel-specific content to dynamic content orchestration – assembling 1:1 experiences at scale based on context, channel, language, and business rules,” Salesforce said. ®
After postponing a planned signing last month for an executive order addressing advanced cybersecurity AI models, President Trump has signed a largely similar version that’s just as questionably effective. The EO, signed in a private ceremony on Tuesday, directs various government agencies to take steps to protect their systems and data, as well as those of agencies they support, from cyber threats, while also facilitating access to advanced AI models that could help agencies bolster their cybersecurity defenses. The order also directs the Treasury Department to establish an “AI cybersecurity clearinghouse” that works with the AI industry and critical infrastructure operators to coordinate and deconflict the use of advanced AI tools for software vulnerability scanning, vulnerability discovery and validation, and remediation and patching efforts. Additional provisions are included to direct federal grant programs toward companies developing AI vulnerability detections, and to expand the US Tech Force's Information Cybersecurity Specialist hiring and placement pathways. Those elements are pretty cut-and-dried, but it’s the rest of the order that has raised eyebrows among policy experts who’ve weighed in on the order so far. Section three of the EO, Secure Frontier Model Deployment, is where the government’s AI model pre-release review scheme is outlined, and it is also where the most substantial change in the order compared to the earlier May draft appears. The version signed Tuesday directs various agencies to work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish a “voluntary framework” through which the federal government would get access to “covered frontier models” for up to 30 days before their planned release to “other trusted partners” in order for the agencies to review them for potential cybersecurity risks. The May draft included a 90-day review period; the reduction to 30 days appears to be the most significant change between the two versions. Along with the review period, section three of the order also asks federal agencies to “develop and maintain a classified benchmarking process to assess the advanced cyber capabilities of AI models,” which would also be used to determine which AI models qualify as covered frontier models for the purpose of the order. The EO also asks that the voluntary framework enable AI companies to "collaborate with the Federal Government to select trusted partners that will have early access to covered frontier models,” meaning that the Trump administration would effectively have a role in picking which companies get to participate in programs like Anthropic’s Project Glasswing for its Claude Mythos Preview. Want early access? You'd better be on our side The Register was contacted by various policy analysts about the EO, and while all agreed some sort of rule was better than nothing, a number of them shared their concerns. “The White House executive order on frontier AI models, while imperfect, is a step in the right direction to prepare the nation for the release of advanced AI systems,” Cato Institute policy analyst Juan Londoño said of the order. “The lack of clear specifications on which criteria should be used to determine what constitutes a 'covered frontier model,' and the government's involvement in decisions about which 'trusted partners' can access these advanced models, gives the executive a great deal of discretion,” Londoño added. “This could open the door to potential weaponization against companies that have any sort of conflict with the administration.” Former FTC chief technologist Neil Chilson likewise said that the order is better than the “current informal approach,” but hopes Congress will take action to establish some actual rules. Gaps in the order, Chilson said, “could be used to pick winners and losers, or to give short-term national security concerns excessive weight at the expense of longer-term national security, economic growth, innovation, and other national interests.” The Center for Democracy and Technology’s VP of policy, Samir Jain, likewise said that the EO takes necessary steps to address risks to critical infrastructure, and like others, he praised the choice to make the framework non-mandatory. That trusted partners element, however, raised his hackles, too. “The EO should not become a mechanism for the Administration to punish companies for political or other arbitrary reasons, and so we will be closely monitoring the details of its implementation as they emerge,” Jain said. The White House didn’t respond to questions for this story. ®
Bug hunting has become a whole lot more exciting in recent months with both Anthropic and OpenAI touting their latest models (that also happen to be super-scary exploit machines). On Tuesday, as Anthropic announced a fourfold expansion to its Mythos preview program, Cisco jumped into the fray, praising the transformative power of AI - but without disclosing how many bugs the latest frontier models found. Cisco SVP Anthony Grieco in a Tuesday blog said that the advanced AI systems, including Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview and OpenAI’s GPT 5.5-Cyber, scanned 1.8 billion lines of code in eight weeks looking for vulnerabilities in Cisco products - a task that otherwise would have taken the networking giant’s advanced security team eight years to accomplish. However, Grieco, who heads Cisco’s security and trust organization, didn’t say how many flaws Mythos and other frontier models uncovered, or if they have all been fixed. The company also did not respond to The Register’s questions about this. Grieco did say that “speed is only half the story,” calling the “real breakthrough” the “scale, quality, and impact” of the models’ findings. The 1.8 billion lines of code, written in more than 25 different languages, spanned Cisco’s portfolio, we’re told. Netzilla paired the models with a “human-guided harness,” and achieved a false positive rate of under 3 percent, Grieco wrote. “Rather than focusing on a specific scope for a security evaluation, we can assess entire code bases of a product. It’s like switching from a flashlight to a flood light to illuminate a dark room,” he said. “Because each finding is validated through a hybrid of AI and human expertise, our engineering teams are receiving actionable intelligence rather than a wall of warnings.” Meanwhile, Anthropic on Tuesday said it expanded Project Glasswing to about 150 additional organizations, bringing the total partner count to about 200. Project Glasswing is the AI giant’s controlled partner program for giving selected orgs access to Claude Mythos Preview. When it announced the new model and partner program in early April, Anthropic limited the preview to about 50 entities, claiming Mythos is so good at finding and exploiting security holes that all hell would break loose and the zombie apocalypse would hit should the model fall into the wrong hands. Since April, these select government agencies and corporate partners - including Cisco - have been using Mythos to find and fix bugs in their own products. Palo Alto Networks, one of the original Project Glasswing partners, said in May that after spending a month using frontier AI models, including Anthropic's Mythos, to scan more than 130 products across its three platforms, it uncovered 26 CVEs representing 75 underlying security issues. For comparison, the cybersecurity giant said it typically discloses fewer than five CVEs per month. At the time, a company exec forecast “a narrow three-to-five-month window for organizations to outpace the adversary before AI-driven exploits start to become the new norm.” The newly expanded Project Glasswing spans more than 15 countries, and, while an Anthropic spokesperson declined to name them or the new partner companies, it’s a safe bet that these are likely Western and/or “friendly” nations. So not China and Russia. Rubrik, a data security and management vendor, said that it was among the new Glasswing partners. The expanded list also reportedly includes the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA), along with Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and SK Telecom, among other Korean companies. “The group covers several industries that weren’t well-represented in our initial cohort, such as power, water, healthcare, communications, and hardware,” according to a Tuesday Anthropic blog. “And many of the new partners are vendors - companies or nonprofits that maintain codebases that are relied upon by lots of other organizations around the world, including governments.” Each new partner must meet Anthropic’s security requirements before they gain access to Mythos, the company added. ®
Marisa Aragón Ware grew up wandering through the Rocky Mountain forests of Colorado, where she reveled in nature’s diversity. There, she learned about woodland wildflowers, fungi, birds, and more with the help of her dad, who is a scientist. Over time, her fascination with organic forms made its way into an evolving art practice.
Based in Boulder, Ware continues to spend time in the woods, taking inspiration from flora and fauna alike. Through a meticulous process of cutting and scoring paper, she creates delicate curves to imitate the volume of leaves or bones and defines feathers, insect wings, and petals with precise veins and edges.
Paper became Ware’s medium of choice because she finds beauty and awe in a material we use so often in daily life that we hardly give it a second thought. “Paper is deeply familiar—everyone has handled it, written grocery lists on it, folded it, torn it, discarded it,” she tells Colossal. “Because it’s such an everyday material, there’s something especially powerful about transforming it into something unexpected.”
Biodiversity and ecosystem interdependence are themes running throughout Ware’s work, and she’s especially interested in the theory of biophilia. The hypothesis posits that humans inherently seek connections with nature on multiple levels. “Our need for nature extends far beyond physical survival; it also nourishes imagination, spirituality, and our sense of meaning,” Ware says. “Through my sculptures, I hope to create moments of wonder that help viewers reconnect with that ancient relationship and perhaps feel more compelled to protect it.”
Precision and control are key in Ware’s practice, but she has recently been privileging experimentation and a loosening-up of her approach. “I’ve been asking myself what may have been lost in the process of becoming technically skilled and how I can return to a beginner’s mindset without abandoning the abilities I’ve spent decades developing,” she says. “That questioning has led me to incorporate new processes and materials, including cyanotypes, allowing myself to work in ways that are less controlled, more intuitive, and more exploratory.”
Ware’s work is included in Common Waters at Arch Enemy Arts, which opens on June 5. See more on Ware’s Instagram. You might also enjoy Manabu Kosaka’s hyperrealistic paper sculptures of retro technology.
Given the heat generated during firing, it’s rare to see paper incorporated into a ceramics practice. For Seoul-based artist Jongjin Park, though, the two go hand-in-hand.
Park recently won the 2026 Loewe Craft Prize, a prestigious annual award celebrating innovative makers, for his striking sculpture “Strata of Illusion.” A rectangular shape with an open top and slouching side, the piece features countless folded layers made from paper towels dipped in watered-down ceramic slip.
Inspired by the distinctive, rippled textures and minuscule lines within stacks of paper, Park “wanted to break through the traditional boundaries and stereotypes inherent in ceramics as a medium,” he tells Colossal. “To do this, I began experimenting with alternative materials other than clay, searching for a meaningful intersection.”
Standard paper towels were a natural fit, but they didn’t come without challenges. “Because the process required firing massive amounts of paper, I had to overcome both technical and ethical hurdles regarding the combustion and disappearance of the paper,” he says. “I strictly use recycled paper made from repurposed milk cartons, and technically, I utilize specialized kilns equipped with high chimneys to manage the exhaust.”
There were also conceptual challenges that Park addressed through reframing how he thought about the material, particularly its malleability when drenched and slippery. “In my practice, this pre-fired state is not viewed as ‘fragile’—the way traditional unfired ceramics are commonly perceived—but rather redefined as a ‘flexible’ state where patterns, forms, and colors can be actively manipulated,” he shares, adding that finding the balance between strength and elasticity was the most difficult part of the experimental process.
Layers, for Park, are both apt metaphors for the passage of time and a material illusion. “When hundreds or thousands of these sheets are stacked together, they withstand the intense heat of the kiln and acquire a solid, monumental permanence, akin to natural rock formations or geological strata,” he says. “I am deeply drawn to this visual and conceptual tension, where seemingly opposing values—thinness and density, flexibility and rigidity—coexist harmoniously within a single structure.”
In addition to his studio practice, Park is a professor in Craft & Collectible Design at Seoul Women’s University. Peek into his process in this video, and find more of his work on Instagram.
I took this photo of an “Island and Oyster Cultivations Rafts” with my iPhone 17 Pro Max while cruising into Hiroshima, Japan. The platforms have the oysters suspended from cedar or bamboo rafts or long lines. This setup allows the oysters to stay in nutrient-rich water columns and avoid seafloor contaminants…
I took this photo of the Cherry Blossoms along the “Osaka Castle Moat” with my iPhone 17 Pro Max while visiting Osaka, Japan. I love the flowering trees and the natural beauty they create…
Opa vertelt maar toen wij 14 waren blowden we ook weleens mee in het park, en daarna kregen we dan heel hard de slappe lach of werden ontiegelijk paranoïde. Wat we heel nadrukkelijk niet deden: snuiven, althans, die ene rare jongen achterin de klas wel, maar dat was lijm en hij had geen vrienden. Er was wel een dealer, maar dat was eigenlijk gewoon een jongen die er ouder uitzag en dus wiet of hasj meekreeg uit de coffeeshop.
Dat er sindsdien het een en ander veranderd is blijkt uit Nachtkinderen, de nieuwe driedelige docuserie van vriendin van de show Sahar Meradji. Die maakt sowieso altijd geweldig spul - eerder volgde ze al op indrukwekkende en indringende wijze wokisten, extreemrechtse gekken, hoeren, junkies, en Nederlandse moslims, nu komen daar dus tieners die keta, 3-mmc of ander obscuur spul gebruiken bij. Afijn, wat ons betreft solliciteert Meradji met Nachtkinderen nadrukkelijk naar de eretitel beste documentairemaker van Nederland, want christus te paard wat een spul is dit. Het leidt tot allerlei talkshowdiscussies over hoe wijdverbreid dit fenomeen nou is, en dat is logisch en goed, maar als je het daadwerkelijk zit te kijken, is dat helemaal niet zo relevant - het is erg genoeg dát dit fenomeen er is.
Nu kijkbaar op Videoland - was een uitstekende serie geweest voor de NPO, maar die zaten waarschijnlijk te slapen, of hadden te weinig budget omdat het leger aan middenmanagers ook betaald moet worden.
Ho, en wellicht ten overvloede, maar doe toch maar geen drugs, kinders.
Ja dat is dan een probleem he! Als je jarenlang alleen maar bezig bent geweest met ruziemaken en het belasteren en het neerhalen van anderen komt er een dag waarop de politieke ballon, die soms gevuld moet worden met compromissen, knapt in je snuit. Als je jarenlang als een onsympathieke olifant door de porseleinkast raust, iedereen tegen je in het harnas jaagt, een kwalijke & vuige drankroddel over een bobo van een andere partij de wereld in helpt en dat extreem huichelachtig in de schoenen van een 'medewerker' probeert te schuiven, de leider van een andere partij naait, een bizarre aanval plaatst op een kopstuk van een andere partij waarvoor je zelfs een standje hebt gekregen van je eigen Kamervoorzitter, je als minister smerige politieke spelletjes speelde door te beloven dat er geen 19 meloen naar de Hamas-loverboys van UNRWA zou gaan om dan lekker pûh stiekem toch 19 meloen naar de Hamas-loverboys van UNRWA te peren, en daarop toch alleen / vooral de ontstane ophef te betreuren, en vrijwel iedereen van links tot rechts je daardoor bestempelt als enorm arrogant, of als mager mannetje, of als draaikont, terwijl je in een vlaag van zelfbevlekking nog een positief kwakje doet over je EIGEN Wikipedia: dat gaat het een keertje mis. NU DUS!
Miguel Ángel Sánchez Muñoz, beter bekend als Míchel, tekende dinsdag een contract voor twee seizoenen als hoofdtrainer van Ajax. Van Girona maakte hij een stuntclub, tot hij dit seizoen onverwachts degradeerde.
De 50-jarige Harry Leijdekkers is dinsdag door Turkije uitgeleverd aan Nederland. Hij werd twee weken geleden al opgepakt en vastgezet. Leijdekkers is de oudere broer van de Brabantse drugscrimineel ‘Bolle Jos’ Leijdekkers, die op de Nationale Opsporingslijst staat en zelf zou verblijven in Sierra Leone.
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